My UK-based brother made an arduous trip in COVID times to see our parents in Kerala. I say arduous because travelling in these days when the pandemic is playing havoc with lives and air travel is not easy. For one, there is the lack of clarity and then there are the ever-changing rules regarding tests and quarantine. In spite of landing in New Delhi airport on a Vande Bharat Mission flight armed with a 48-hour fresh PCR test report, the short layover became a seven-day paid quarantine for male passengers like him. The second mandatory test in Delhi happened only on paper and he flew to God’s own country a week later, apprehensive of the quarantine rigours that Kerala has been practising in its frontline fight against the pandemic.
The State is valiantly fighting a community spread – it has no qualms in admitting that we have reached that stage – of COVID-19 and leaves no stone unturned to return to the near-zero levels it had reached – winning international praise – before stranded Indians across the world, but mainly expatriates from the Gulf region, began trooping back to the verdant land they held close to their heart as they toiled in the desert heat.
No more can we witness excited relatives coming to pick up the NRI from airport; a COVID special airport taxi ferries the passenger home. The airport formalities are systematic and quick in Kerala. Instructions were given on the 14-day home quarantine, which brother now spends on the first floor of the house in isolation. The rest of the family has gone into quarantine too, with a COVID alert notice promptly pasted on the gate by the local government staff.
Save for getting his first name wrong, the rest of the protocols are perfect. Courteous cops from the nearest police station enquire on him daily either over the phone or in person – keeping tab on international arrivals has become necessary as some citizens like to play truant and explore the world outside. It also shows the new face of Kerala Police – friendly and approachable, or jana maitree, as they have rebranded themselves. They don’t mind if they look a bit silly dancing to Nanchamma’s “Kalakkatha sandana meram” if it can get the message of handwashing and hygiene across to the State’s people. Some day we will thank coronavirus for improving our sense of hygiene and for bringing certain English words – quarantine, pandemic, lockdown, clusters etc – into local parlance.
Books have been sent from the local library for the quarantined visitor. Ayurvedic pills to boost immunity also arrive. In this case, district administration Pathanamthitta is effectively micro-managing the physical and mental health of each person under observation.
After a week in quarantine, he gets a nasal swab done at the nearest hospital beating serpentine queues. Anyone who has come in contact with a COVID-positive person has to take the test apart from international arrivals like him.
Another friend who drove down to Kochi from Chennai is also going through a 14-day quarantine to be followed by 14 days under observation. He too gets regular calls and visits from the police and health department staff including the mental health counsellor, who even asks how they are managing and how they get provisions. Police have been known to fetch provisions for the elderly and the invalid.
Apparently, the police are able to concentrate their energies on the COVID fight because accidents and crime have come down during the pandemic. The former because there are fewer vehicles on the roads due to lockdown and containment zones; intense patrolling and virus transmission fears have probably led to a decline in petty thefts while murders, suicides and unnatural deaths have also gone down, according to police officers.
Containment zones, clusters and triple lockdowns have been clamped to bring down Kerala’s COVID cases that have been surging since the beginning of repatriation flights and resumption of inter-State movement. A brave administration and its frontline warriors continue to micro-manage the fight against the coronavirus pandemic and prove why Kerala’s health standards are on a par with that of developed nations.
